Monday, 8 November 2010

Sing along with the common people

The winds roared through the night, as the window were lashed with heavy rain. This morning there are puddles everywhere. A thick, brown gilet of sycamore and beech leaves lines the windscreen and bonnet of a parked car, keeping the vehicle warm until it awakes.

The weather held out for bonfire night and the skies around The Enchanted Village were a riot of colour as Mr Grigg set off rockets with names like 'Explorer' and 'Goliath'. As well as our own village do, the posh people up the road pitched in, with fireworks even bigger and better than we commoners could afford.

Over the hill, the sky lit up from north to south, from east to west, with flashes of light accompanied by loud booms. For one night only, World War Three had been declared.

And in the pub and several pints of cider later, Mr Putter led a small table in a singsong, starting with Donald Where’s Yer Troosers. Mr Grigg lowered the tone, with a cheeky rendition of Adge Cutler and The Wurzels' Twice Daily: 'Her ups and slips and zummat rips and I went there twice daily...'

And then the landlady, normally so quiet and demure, got down the hunting horns. We hadn’t seen anything like this since Dudley’s wake back in the summer.

We found ourselves being conducted in ten verses of Roll Me Over in the Clover, rapidly followed by me leading Dinah, Dinah Show Us Yer Leg.

Even the usually ladylike Mrs Bancroft was chuckling and joining in while the fragrant Mrs Putter managed to get a very good tune out of one of the horns, although not half as good as the landlady, who must surely have been a whipper-in in a previous life.

The saving grace was that our singing master, Caruso, wasn’t in the pub that night. He would have been worried about more than just our intonation. The words might have vexed him slightly too.